Thanks, Josh, it's very interesting to see that Kate isn't alone in her pattern of response. I like the idea behind your last question -- though of course there's a sense in which you can even stand on a quarter.

I love it. A new field: Developmental Phenomenology. Eric, please post a list of questions we should be asking children to get at their experience of things (or their theory of their experience of things?). I've got a 2.5 year old I'll try the moon question on soon, but we should think about stuff to try on older kids too. I'll ask my 9 and 6 year olds if a tilted quarter looks round (then I'll try to trick them with a tilted ellipse).

Thanks for the kind comment, Eddy -- and the cool label! John Flavell (et al.) and Carl Granrud (et al.) have done interesting work on developmental phenomenology in your sense, including tilted-coin type cases.

Other types of questions to ask children about their phenomenology? That's an issue ripe for some serious thinking. It's easy to think of cavalier questions, but given how hard it is to communicate accurately about phenomenology with adults, one always has to wonder about how children are understanding the questions and whether one is leading them too much.

Still:

(1.) Afterimages are a ripe category, and given what we know about them, we can check up on the reports in some ways. Ask about their persistence, color etc.

(2.) Inner speech. I think when Davy was about 4, I heard him notice inner speech for the first time. I heard him exclaim, from the next room over, something like "I said to myself but I didn't hear myself!" (I wrote down the exact words and day, but I don't have them here.) It would be interesting to try to develop a means of asking young children about whether they experience inner speech. Also, once they report it, where is it subjectively located (e.g., inside the head)? Among children who can read: When can they start to read silently to themselves, with inner speech, and when does reading *have* to be out loud?

(3.) I am generally curious about the development of illusion (e.g. in my post on development of the moon illusion), but there seems to be little published on the topic. We could present standard illusory stimuli to children and see what they report. Since it doesn't seem to be until age 4 that they understand the appearance/reality distinction, it will be important to ensure that they don't know that the stimuli are misleading or tricky in any way, so that the reality/appearance judgments are aligned.

(4.) The location of me / the location of thinking / the location of feeling. Try versions of this question and see if you can localize it, with the main competitors being head and chest. Aristotle and Mencius said that they thought with their hearts; most Western adults tend to locate thinking (and inner speech) in the head. Do children give more heartish locations than adults?

(5.) Try the "rubber hand" illusion, and variants of it, with children -- are their body maps more labile than adults? Don't just ask with words, but do something like stab the rubber hand with a pencil and note the child's reaction -- vs. your spouse's, say, after inducing the illusion in her.

(6.) Double images, e.g., with the finger near the nose while the eyes are focused in the distance....

Anyhow, those are a few off the top of my head which I have tried with my own children.

Thanks for the kind comment, Eddy -- and the cool label! John Flavell (et al.) and Carl Granrud (et al.) have done interesting work on developmental phenomenology in your sense, including tilted-coin type cases.

Other types of questions to ask children about their phenomenology? That's an issue ripe for some serious thinking. It's easy to think of cavalier questions, but given how hard it is to communicate accurately about phenomenology with adults, one always has to wonder about how children are understanding the questions and whether one is leading them too much.

Still:

(1.) Afterimages are a ripe category, and given what we know about them, we can check up on the reports in some ways. Ask about their persistence, color etc.

(2.) Inner speech. I think when Davy was about 4, I heard him notice inner speech for the first time. I heard him exclaim, from the next room over, something like "I said to myself but I didn't hear myself!" (I wrote down the exact words and day, but I don't have them here.) It would be interesting to try to develop a means of asking young children about whether they experience inner speech. Also, once they report it, where is it subjectively located (e.g., inside the head)? Among children who can read: When can they start to read silently to themselves, with inner speech, and when does reading *have* to be out loud?

(3.) I am generally curious about the development of illusion (e.g. in my post on development of the moon illusion), but there seems to be little published on the topic. We could present standard illusory stimuli to children and see what they report. Since it doesn't seem to be until age 4 that they understand the appearance/reality distinction, it will be important to ensure that they don't know that the stimuli are misleading or tricky in any way, so that the reality/appearance judgments are aligned.

(4.) The location of me / the location of thinking / the location of feeling. Try versions of this question and see if you can localize it, with the main competitors being head and chest. Aristotle and Mencius said that they thought with their hearts; most Western adults tend to locate thinking (and inner speech) in the head. Do children give more heartish locations than adults?

(5.) Try the "rubber hand" illusion, and variants of it, with children -- are their body maps more labile than adults? Don't just ask with words, but do something like stab the rubber hand with a pencil and note the child's reaction -- vs. your spouse's, say, after inducing the illusion in her.

(6.) Double images, e.g., with the finger near the nose while the eyes are focused in the distance....

Anyhow, those are a few off the top of my head which I have tried with my own children.

Thanks for the kind comment, Eddy -- and the cool label! John Flavell (et al.) and Carl Granrud (et al.) have done interesting work on developmental phenomenology in your sense, including tilted-coin type cases.

Other types of questions to ask children about their phenomenology? That's an issue ripe for some serious thinking. It's easy to think of cavalier questions, but given how hard it is to communicate accurately about phenomenology with adults, one always has to wonder about how children are understanding the questions and whether one is leading them too much.

Still:

(1.) Afterimages are a ripe category, and given what we know about them, we can check up on the reports in some ways. Ask about their persistence, color etc.

(2.) Inner speech. I think when Davy was about 4, I heard him notice inner speech for the first time. I heard him exclaim, from the next room over, something like "I said to myself but I didn't hear myself!" (I wrote down the exact words and day, but I don't have them here.) It would be interesting to try to develop a means of asking young children about whether they experience inner speech. Also, once they report it, where is it subjectively located (e.g., inside the head)? Among children who can read: When can they start to read silently to themselves, with inner speech, and when does reading *have* to be out loud?

(3.) I am generally curious about the development of illusion (e.g. in my post on development of the moon illusion), but there seems to be little published on the topic. We could present standard illusory stimuli to children and see what they report. Since it doesn't seem to be until age 4 that they understand the appearance/reality distinction, it will be important to ensure that they don't know that the stimuli are misleading or tricky in any way, so that the reality/appearance judgments are aligned.

(4.) The location of me / the location of thinking / the location of feeling. Try versions of this question and see if you can localize it, with the main competitors being head and chest. Aristotle and Mencius said that they thought with their hearts; most Western adults tend to locate thinking (and inner speech) in the head. Do children give more heartish locations than adults?

(5.) Try the "rubber hand" illusion, and variants of it, with children -- are their body maps more labile than adults? Don't just ask with words, but do something like stab the rubber hand with a pencil and note the child's reaction -- vs. your spouse's, say, after inducing the illusion in her.

(6.) Double images, e.g., with the finger near the nose while the eyes are focused in the distance....

Anyhow, those are a few off the top of my head which I have tried with my own children.

I love this post. I immediately think of an analogoussequence related to number sense. I still have a 3 year old, so I will give it a try when I return home. In the mean time, do you think that the quantity element in your sequence is related to number sense?